A Hidden Life (39 page)

She turned on to her stomach and buried her face in the pillow. Scenes from the disastrous evening in Paris came into her mind and
she tried to banish them, with little success. She'd been snubbed. She'd been willing – longing – to break what seemed like years of celibacy and she'd been rejected.
But you're not in love with Harry,
a tiny voice in her mind said. That was true but it didn't matter. She still felt shitty. Let down. Disappointed. Sad. Who were her friends? How many did she have? Who could she ring up and moan at? There was Margie, but she was more of a babysitter. There was Cath from college, but she was in Scotland now. There were Dotty and Coral from school days but they weren't much good to her as they lived in Haywards Heath. Jeanette from Cinnamon Hill was okay but lived miles away south of the river and anyway, she wasn't a friend so much as a work acquaintance. What was the matter with her? It was unnatural for a woman of her age not to be surrounded by good pals. Even Bridget Jones in the book and the movie had a gang of sorts. Thinking about how lonely she was made Lou feel even more miserable. She totted up all the things she didn't have: a husband, a boyfriend, an income that meant something, friends, a decent flat – even her family wasn't up to much. A useless sister and brother who weren't even proper blood relatives. No grandparents. No aunts and uncles. No cousins.

In the end, the list of woes was so relentless that it made her laugh. It was just completely ridiculous. What happened to counting your blessings, eh? A beautiful daughter, parents who loved her to bits, a job she enjoyed, even though she made no money at it, and above all, herself. I'm young, she told herself. I'm healthy. I've just written a screenplay. I'm okay. I haven't got Harry. That's it. That's the only thing about today's situation that's different from what was happening a couple of days ago. And perhaps having a step-great-grandmother who was a murderer. Oh, how fabulous! She smiled. Grow up, woman, Lou said to herself. Go and wash your face and make the best of a bad job.

She toughed it out all the way to the bathroom, but then seeing herself so blotchy and red-eyed from crying depressed her all over again. Fuck it! she thought. It's no good. I
am
sad about Harry and there's nothing I can do. I'll just have to get used to the fact that he likes me but isn't interested in me romantically. That's it. And while I do, I have to face the fact that I'm going to be miserable at least some of the time. Bloody Harry!

‘Darling, how lovely to see you! I was beginning to think you were never coming home.' Matt took Phyl's suitcase from her and carried it into the house. Once they were inside, he turned and took her in his arms and kissed her. ‘I've been missing you so much.'

‘Really?' Phyl was allowing herself to be kissed and for a moment Matt wondered whether she
knew
. No, that wasn't possible. His night with Ellie, which he'd regretted almost as soon as he'd managed to escape from the flat in Portland Place, was beginning to acquire in his mind the status of something between a fantasy and a nightmare, and because there had been no immediate repercussions, he'd assumed that Phyl had swallowed his bridge story whole. He'd been quite good, he reckoned, at the follow-up, ringing her the next day with anecdotes from the evening, messages of good wishes from everyone round the card table and so forth. There had been something in her voice on the phone that slightly put the wind up him, till he realized that it was Lou's situation that was getting to her. It was also on account of poor Lou that she'd decided to stay on for a few extra days in London.

For once, he hadn't minded. It had given him time to regroup. Gather his strength. Ellie had been a ghastly mistake. She always was a mistake. In the old days, it was one that had taken him a couple of years to shake off, but the thing last week … well, that was never going to happen again and he'd told Ellie so in no uncertain terms. Typically, she'd pooh-poohed the idea of him showing restraint, but he'd been strict with himself and hadn't rung her and certainly hadn't
visited her and had managed to be ‘out of the office' when she called him there. Not that he'd confided in his secretary, or only partly. He'd made out that Ellie was a nuisance, no more, and after him for business reasons and he'd left instructions that no calls from her were to be put through to him. He regarded Ellie as a kind of virus that had infected his bloodstream. Did viruses infect your bloodstream? Or was that bacteria? Whatever, he was over the fever now, and seeing Phyl again had made him more determined than ever to put his night with Ellie firmly out of his mind.

‘Come into the kitchen and I'll make you a cup of tea.'

‘I could do with one.'

She followed him and sat down at the kitchen table. Without needing to think, he reached for the decaffeinated Earl Grey, the cups Phyl liked best, and the tin of shortbread that was precisely where he knew it would be. This, he reflected as he wondered what to say next, was what it was about, a life together. A great many years shared. Knowing the person, having the kind of life where things existed in their proper order: the shortbread tin to the left of the top shelf in the second cupboard and always, always
there
and not anywhere else and filled with the same kind of biscuits. This was marriage. Or was he mad? Driven mad by retrospective guilt? Nonsense! He was only being mildly silly and that was on account of the huge relief he was feeling. There was Phyl, same as ever, sitting in her usual chair and looking …

‘You're looking very tired, darling. Is anything the matter?' Matt didn't have to feign concern. His wife looked ghastly. Her skin was greyish, the shadows under her eyes so purple and huge that they gave her the appearance of a panda.

‘I am tired,' she answered. She took a sip of tea and sighed and leaned back in the chair. ‘Not had too much sleep recently. Poppy's going through a bit of a wakeful period. Teeth, I suppose. Or just being unsettled in general because of Lou. Kids are like animals in that way, they pick up vibes from their parents.'

‘How's Lou feeling now?'

‘How did you think she was on the phone?'

‘Well, she sounded – I suppose trying to be brave just about describes it.'

‘She's depressed. She's another reason why I've not been sleeping well. After Ray, she was so low that she could scarcely move, but now she's perfectly okay on the surface and doesn't let on that she really, really cared about this Harry person, but it's clear she did. I saw tears in her eyes every so often, in a quiet moment.' Phyl laughed. ‘That's one good thing about little children: they don't leave you many quiet moments to get gloomy in. But she's very hurt, there's no doubt about it. She was going to Cinnamon Hill today for the first time. I must remember to phone and ask her how it went.'

‘I don't think it's very sensible of her to work in the very place where she's going to run into him all the time. She could find something else, surely?'

‘I know. I asked her about it but she was adamant. It made me wonder why she was so keen to stay on and I reckon she's still hoping. She yelled at me when I suggested that was why she didn't want to leave, really let me have it. You know: why d'you want to define me through Harry? Why can't I be wanting to stay on because I like the work? That kind of thing.'

‘Poor you. Never mind, she'll work it out. Here, have a piece of shortbread.' Phyl shook her head. ‘No, thanks. Matt, can you sit down a minute? I want to ask you something.'

‘Of course. I'm in no rush to get back to the office.' He sat opposite Phyl and patted her hand. She pulled it away, and he was mystified. Something was going on here. She was about to say something grim. Terrible. Please, God, he said to himself, in a formula he hadn't used since the night that Poppy was born when he found he could hardly bear the idea of Lou in pain, let it not be cancer. Not illness. Please, God, let it be anything but that.

‘What is it, darling?' he whispered. ‘Are you ill?'

‘Oh, God, no, Matt, for heaven's sake! Stop looking as though I was about to be marched off to a hospital. No, I'm absolutely fine. Unhappy but fine. Torn apart but nothing wrong with my health, I promise.'

‘I can't bear to hear you talk like that, Phyl. It makes me … I don't know what to do when you say such things. I need you.'

‘Is that right?'

‘Yes, it
is
right. I couldn't survive without you.'

‘Rubbish. Of course you could. Everyone can survive.'

‘You know what I mean. I … I love you, Phyl.'

She stood up, abruptly, moving from the table to the kitchen sink, staring fixedly out of the window at the garden. She had her back to him so that he couldn't see the expression on her face, but he could tell there was a lump in her throat when she spoke. What the hell …

‘Do you?' she said. ‘You have a funny way of showing it.'

He stood up. ‘What are you talking about? Have you taken leave of your senses?' He was standing beside her and turned her round to face him. She dropped her head and he put his hand under her chin and lifted it up. ‘You're crying, Phyl. What's the matter? Oh, darling, tell me why you're crying.'

‘You bastard! You dishonest bastard! You KNOW why I'm crying! You've been seeing Ellie. Don't deny it. I know. That night – the night you said you were at bridge – you weren't. I know you weren't.'

‘How do you know?' As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew what he'd done. How could four tiny little words so immediately wreck completely the elaborate lie he'd constructed and which he thought was standing up so well? A mistake. A dreadful mistake to say that. He knew what he ought to have said, what might have allowed him to carry on lying. Something like
of course I was. How dare you suggest I'm not telling the truth?
That would have been the way to go: white-hot indignation would have been a far better option. Terrified abject guilt, that was what his words meant. He couldn't go on lying now. Part of him wanted to run: just turn and run out of the room and not come back. He was back to being a child. Constance had often made him feel like this. Phyl said, ‘I'm right. I knew I was. Okay.'

‘Where are you going? Come back, Phyl. I want to talk to you.'

From the door, she said, over her shoulder, ‘I don't want to talk to you, though. I'm going upstairs to pack.'

‘To unpack, you mean. I'll carry up your suitcase.'

She went on walking, not looking back. Matt didn't know what to do, what to say next. Phyl was on the landing. He called out to her: ‘Wait! Don't go! Please come back down …'

No answer. Should he follow her? Would she be angrier if he followed her and talked the matter out, found out what she knew and what she intended to do about it, or should he stay out of the way? In the end, he opted for direct action.

‘Here you go. Here's your case …' he said, standing in the doorway of their bedroom. Phyl had started to tip the contents of her drawers on to the double bed. She'd already done one and was starting on the second. ‘Phyl? What on earth are you doing? Stop it. Please, darling, don't do that.'

‘I'm going to need,' she said, putting back the second drawer, now empty, ‘some more suitcases. Can you get some down from the attic? I'm not sure how many I'll need. Three or four at least.'

‘But why?' Matt knew he was shouting and he didn't care.

‘Because I'm leaving you. I'm going to put some cases into storage and live with Lou for a bit till we can find a nice place together. It'll make life much easier for her if I'm there full-time to help her and it must be good for her to leave that poky little flat of hers. I'm sure you'll make some kind of generous settlement, after more than twenty years of marriage.'

Things were going far too quickly. How had it got to this? Matt felt as though a current had swept him along and not only did he not have the smallest clue about how he had got to this point, he also felt as though huge chunks of time must have elapsed when he'd not been paying attention because he had lost the thread of how one thing led to another. He tried as hard as he could to follow a line of logic in what had gone on since she'd accused him of seeing Ellie and he'd said those horrible, fateful four words:
How do you know?
He'd spoken, then Phyl had said she was right and then, seamlessly, she'd started up the stairs to pack. That was it. She knew about him and Ellie and she was leaving.

‘Phyl?' he said, tentatively. ‘May I come in and talk to you?'

‘I don't care. It won't make any difference.' She was on the fourth drawer by now.

‘Please stop doing that and come and sit down next to me. Please …' There was a small sofa under the window and he went to sit on it. She stood, hesitating, by the bed, not crying any longer but with her mouth set tight, as though she never wanted to smile again. In
the end, she approached the sofa. Matt felt like a hunter, not daring to move a muscle lest he frighten her away. After she sat down, he started to talk. He didn't stop to think about what would be politic, about what he ought to say, about what might influence his wife … his dear, beloved, cherished wife … to change her mind. He only knew he wanted more than he'd ever wanted anything, that she shouldn't go. Shouldn't leave him.

‘Phyl, it's true. I
was
at Ellie's. She asked me and I didn't say no. I could have done. I ought to have done. It was a weak moment, that's all. I do not love Ellie. I stopped loving her a very long time ago and that hasn't changed. You were away, I was on my own, and she asked me … I didn't want her coming round here and she would have done. She … she'd set her heart on …'

‘On getting you back. I could see that was what she wanted. God, she's ghastly! How
could
she?'